River City Girls (PS4) Review

 River City Girls (PS4) 8/10

Hello everyone and welcome back to another game review. River City Girls was released on September 5, 2019 for the PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and PC. The game was developed by Wayforward Technologies and published by Wayforward and Arc System Works. Also fun fact, this game is tied to the old River City Ransom and Kunio-kun games, which I did not know about prior to playing this. The game was a massive success despite RCG flying under the radar, with a niche community forming around the game.

I really love this game. This game has so much love and passion and care put into it. Made by the same team that did the Shantae series, RCG oozes with style and humor and I can’t get enough of it. When I very first played this, I HATED the ending and so did a lot of other people. Wayforward listened and tweaked the ending with an update so that it’s much more satisfactory. I love this company and I can’t wait to tell you guys about the game.

Our story follows best friends Misako and Kyoko as they scour River City in search for their kidnapped boyfriends. You see, both Misako and Kyoko are in detention when Kyoko gets a weird text with a picture of their boyfriends Kunio and Riki being forced into a van. Assuming that they’re being kidnapped, the two break out of detention and begin their journey. Along the way, they’ll be fighting the residents of River City in endless brawls, fighting mean bosses, and meeting weird characters.

I love this story. I love our main characters Misako and Kyoko. Misako is the tough-as-nails brawler that likes to talk with her fists. She’s rough around the edges and has a slight anger problem, but she means well. Kyoko is the opposite of Misako. She’s the bubbly, cute one but isn’t afraid to fight back in search of her boyfriend Riki. She hates scary things and is kind of your typical high school girl. Hasebe and Mami are two peas in a pod that harass Misako and Kyoko through teasing and verbal bullying. They pop up every once in a while and are our heroes’ rivals. There’s also Godai. Godai is the weird kid that knows just a little bit too much. You can find him in every part of town and he’ll give you a side mission to do. I liked Godai. He’s a very strange guy but you can’t hate him. There’s a couple of other side characters such as Hiroshi from the mall, Yoko from Uptown, Skullmageddon from the Double Dragon franchise and even Billy Lee and Jimmy Lee from the Double Dragon games (the main characters). These two are the heads of the dojos you can visit. I’ll get to this in a little bit. I also like all of the bosses too. Each one is developed just enough that you feel satisfied and then you can continue to beat their ass.

One thing I wasn’t expecting from this game is its LONG gaming history. I had no idea this was such a prominent franchise back in Japan. When I first picked up the game, I was a bit confused about it. The game keeps throwing references about the series all over the place. Eventually I looked into it and this franchise has been around since the Famicom (NES)! There’s a huge number of games in the series including street brawlers and sports games. There’s also ties to Double Dragon that I was not expecting. When I first saw Billy Lee in the first dojo, I freaked out a little bit. River City Girls is a great entry point for the series and if you want to dive into the rest of the series, this game is a good place to start.

Before I get into gameplay, let’s talk about graphics. This game looks really good. I’ve always loved beautiful 16-bit art direction and this game doesn't disappoint. All the characters, animations, backgrounds, everything looks really good. This is one of the best aspects of the game. I also love the color palette for the game. The use of pink, orange, red, and blue adds a sense of charm and uniqueness that you don’t see too often.

The sound design is great too. Everything sounds clear and I love the sound effects for punches, kicks, and the poundings that you’ll be giving everyone. I love the voice acting too. A couple of voices that stuck out to me are: Kira Buckland (Kyoko), Erika Harlacher (Noize), Arin Hanson (Jimmy Lee), Dan Avidan (Billy Lee), Sean ‘Jacksepticeye’ McLoughlin (Godai), Cristina Valenzuela (Hasebe), and Patrick Seitz (Abobo). I can not believe that Wayforward got Game Grumps, Jacksepticeye, and the voice of Shantae in this. That is awesome. Also shout out to Kira Buckland and Erika Harlacher. I love these two. In the game, there are several Youtuber cameos (such as Arin and Ross from Game Grumps drawing in Crosstown) and probably a couple more that I didn’t recognize.

The music. Bro this soundtrack is so fucking good. Idk what it is with Wayforward, but they always drop the best soundtracks. The music for this game is synthpop mixed with retro beats and it sounds amazing. Megan McDuffee did an excellent job here. A bit rough on Noize’s boss theme, but the rest of the soundtrack sounds amazing. I love this entire soundtrack and I rank it as a personal favorite.

Now onto gameplay. The game is a street brawler similar to that of River City Ransom, Double Dragon, and Streets of Rage. You can play the game solo or with a friend. I highly recommend playing with a friend because the game does get difficult when playing alone and it’s just a lot more fun. As you play, you’ll be beating the crap out of everyone that gets in your way. After the first boss, you’ll leave school and enter Crosstown. Here, the game will start to open up to you. You can buy food for health, clothes for upgrades and powers, and go to the dojo to learn new moves for your combos. The more people you beat up, the more XP and money you’ll earn. By earning XP, you’ll level up. Leveling up will increase your stats (such as strength, agility, luck, etc). You can also increase your stats by buying stuff from the shops. As you continue the story, you’ll run into Godai. Godai gives you side quests (such as getting him a burger, destroying cars, beating up snitches, and other things). Completing these will reward you with XP and money.

There’s also collectables in the game. All throughout River City, you’ll find Sabu Statues. These statues are busts of the former Yakuza boss that Kunio put away in one of his games. If you destroy all of these, you’ll get the Mami earring. After you beat the game, you’ll get the Hasebe earring. If you equip both and enter the final boss area again, you’ll fight Hasebe and Mami instead of Sabuko. This fight was fucking great and totally worth going the extra mile to unlocking. In New Game +, there’s a new collectible: stray cats. Find all 25 and you’ll get the Cat Pin. This pin is a game changer. Equipping will give you infinite SP for special moves, meaning that you can spam your specials all you want and it’s amazing. There’s also a secret shop in the tunnel to Ocean Heights. If you find it, you’ll enter a retro styled shop that only has 2 items. These items are the Tank Button and Bunny Button. The Tank Button will increase your strength 10x, but you move slow af. The Bunny Button will increase your agility 6x. If you can afford both (each one costs $5000), you’ll become a walking juggernaut. My friend got the Tank Button and I got the Bunny Button. He’s over here killing everyone in three hits and with my speed, I’m dodging everything and going in for quick attacks.

After you beat the game, you’ll unlock 2 new characters: Kunio and Riki. Kunio is a powerhouse and Riki was honestly a disappointment. The best characters in the game are Kyoko and Kunio. These 2 working together are an unstoppable force.

As for the bosses, they are actually really fun, except for Hibari. Fuck Hibari. My favorite boss has to be either Yamada or Abobo. These two were a great challenge and really fun to fight. On the complete opposite side of that is Hibari. Hibari is the high end fashion designer for River City and the third boss. We had the most difficulty fighting her because her boss fight played differently than everyone else (I can say the same with Noize, but Noize’s fight wasn’t irritating). Hibari’s fight was so annoying because you have to stand at the perfect spot in order to counter her perfectly. When I was doing my solo playthrough, I HAD to break this fight down to a science, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to beat her. All of this on top of her snarky voice made me hate her with a passion.

The game does have some problems. First thing is that the game had a couple of technical issues where it would suddenly crash. Thankfully the game autosaves every time you go to another area, so these crashes weren’t too problematic. Another thing is the prices for certain items in the shops. A lot of the good items require a shit load of money to get and grinding up the cash is very time consuming and tedious. I also think it’s bullshit how one character is so much more powerful than the other. Take Misako and Kyoko for example. Between these two, Kyoko is the overall better character. Her combos and stats are so much better than Misako that Misako just feels like a bad character. Same thing with Kunio and Riki. Kunio is a legit broken character. His specials can literally take out 5 enemies at once and it is completely insane. Riki felt underpowered and his combos just aren’t good compared to Kunio. The problem here is the power scaling between each character. I understand Kunio being overpowered because of his fights and his history of fighting, but what about everyone else?

Anyway, I think I covered everything I needed to cover. The game was a lot of fun despite my issues with it. It’s a fun co-op game with a good amount of stuff to do in it. I dropped maybe 20-25 hours into this across two and a half playthroughs. I highly recommend this game to everyone as it’s a genuinely great game that needs more love and attention. I can’t wait to dive into River City Girls Zero and River City Girls 2. Until then, stay safe out there.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.